Opinion Blog

In 50 years, who will be the next John Graves?

When I read John Graves’ “Goodbye to a River” as a college freshman in 1972, I confess I didn’t relish reading the book, which was already a Texas classic. I had grown up in Fort Worth and spent a lot of time hunting, fishing and running around with buddies on farms and ranches west of there. The natural world Graves described in his tale about canoeing down the Brazos was one that I knew pretty well. And, as I told Rodger yesterday, reading about rocks, bugs and dirt really didn’t capture my imagination. I had lived that, and, frankly, didn’t consider it so romantic.

But then later in life (I always seem to get the point in life after the fact!), I came to appreciate the sense of place Graves presented in his writings, including through such works as “From a Limestone Ledge.”

Maybe it was because I had lived away for a while and had seen how a writer like James J. Kilpatrick had captured the essence of rural Virginia. Kilpatrick’s writings got me to thinking about what I had left behind.

I had put Texas out of mind — or tried to, I don’t think Texans ever forget their home. But gradually Texas reclaimed me and I had a new interest in “our” sense of place.

When I finally returned home, I came to love the natural world that Graves described. It was more than bugs and dirt and rocks, if you will. What he wrote about was really a part of us, of who we are as Texans.

I raise this point because the 50th anniversary of the publishing of Graves’ “Goodbye to a River” is being celebrated this month. The Witliff Collection at Texas State University is hosting a remembrance of the book through mid-December, and it will even include Graves’ canoe paddle. Texas Monthly has profiled him — again. And he’s the subject of a piece in a recent Texas Highways.

His story was originally published in Holiday magazine in 1959. Then, in October 1960, it was published as a book. A year later he won the Texas Institute of Letters’ Carr P. Collins award and was nominated for a National Book Award. More than those honors, his work has survived as a Texas classic, earning him the title of Texas’ Thoreau.

Indeed, his contributions stand alongside the books of Texas writers like Larry McMurtry and J. Frank Dobie. You read them and you get a sense of our state.

Or what Texas was like.

Graves wrote “Goodbye to a River” after returning to Texas in 1957. He had lived in New York and Europe, but long before that, he had spent a lot of time hunting and fishing on Texas farms and ranches. And he had traveled the Brazos as a boy.

When he came back, a dam was being planned for the famous river, to make way for all the people who were starting to live in Texas’ cities and suburbs. So, he put his canoe in the Brazos. And, along with his dog, he started down it in a kind of farewell to the river he had known.

In short, he was describing the separation between postwar Texans who were setting up shop in our cities and the natural world around them.

The celebration of this book is well-deserved. But it also raises a couple of questions: In another 50 years, what Texas writers will we be celebrating? And what will they be lamenting as a passing of Texas lore?

Those are perplexing questions because there are no natural heir apparents to Graves, McMurtry or even historian T.R. Fehrenbach. But there are writers like Dagoberto Gilb, who wonderfully describes the grittiness of southwestern life. And there are essayists like Don Graham, who does a superb job chronicling Texas in his critiques of films, music and literature. The next Texas classic, though, remains to be written.

There certainly are aspects of modern Texas that warrant the insight of a keen writer. The border is a complex place. A new wave of immigrants is struggling to make it here. And there is the fact that most of us live in a metropolitan triangle that runs from Houston/Galveston to Austin/San Antonio to Dallas/Fort Worth.

Who will capture the essence of that Texas? And what have we given up to get to this point, beyond our connection to our rural past?

I don’t know the answers, but I’d like to think the Texas traits of independence, resilience and respect for the natural world will endure. Otherwise, we would be no different than, say, Indiana and that would be the ultimate loss.

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The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board was the first editorial board in the nation to use a blog to openly discuss hot topics and issues among its members and with readers. Our intent is to pull back the curtain on the daily process of producing the unsigned editorials that reflect the opinion of the newspaper, and to share analysis and opinion on issues of interest to board members and invited guest bloggers.